This got to me:
> For a certain type of developer, building things yourself is just more fun
The platform APIs were terrible. React wasn't "more fun"... it just made it possible to do things with the platform that were extremely difficult and cumbersome to get working reliably with platform APIs alone.
To me, web components were an incredible idea poorly implemented. Most of the minimal adoption happened on top of frameworks like Lit that wrapped WCs to try to make the dev experience tolerable.
In urban planning they have a concept called "desire paths" where if you don't put sidewalks and pathways in the right places, people invent their own. I feel like the web community has spent a lot of time and effort patching the platform.
Now credit where credit is due: it has very much improved. And modern standards means it really is time to re-evaluate where and when you need these patches. But don't write off all that annoying and painful effort people put in to trying to making the platform deliver it's promised potential just to "building it yourself is more fun".
Pathways is an urban open problem that companies like GoodMaps are trying to solve, although in a convoluted way (more sensors = more accuracy, but walled-garden is meh).
That's fascinating that it already had a term! The YC founder I used to work for was adamant that he came up with the term "idealized path" for this phenomenon.
> Landscapers sometimes accommodate desire paths by paving them, thereby integrating them into the official path network rather than blocking them.[…] Sometimes, land planners have deliberately left land fully or partially unpathed, waiting to see what desire paths are created, and then paving those.
from <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desire_path&oldid=1366655989#Accommodation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desire_path&oldid...>
toddmorey · · focus · HN ↗
The platform APIs were terrible. React wasn't "more fun"... it just made it possible to do things with the platform that were extremely difficult and cumbersome to get working reliably with platform APIs alone.
To me, web components were an incredible idea poorly implemented. Most of the minimal adoption happened on top of frameworks like Lit that wrapped WCs to try to make the dev experience tolerable.
In urban planning they have a concept called "desire paths" where if you don't put sidewalks and pathways in the right places, people invent their own. I feel like the web community has spent a lot of time and effort patching the platform.
Now credit where credit is due: it has very much improved. And modern standards means it really is time to re-evaluate where and when you need these patches. But don't write off all that annoying and painful effort people put in to trying to making the platform deliver it's promised potential just to "building it yourself is more fun".
jodrellblank · · focus · HN ↗
If you're wondering what that looks like, people post pictures of them found in the wild on Reddit:
<a href="https://reddit.com/r/DesirePaths/" rel="nofollow">https://reddit.com/r/DesirePaths/
mycall · · focus · HN ↗
Freedom2 · · focus · HN ↗
shwaj · · focus · HN ↗
brewmarche · · focus · HN ↗
from <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desire_path&oldid=1366655989#Accommodation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desire_path&oldid...>